Campuses traditionally had physical edges. Boundaries marked by walls, gates and signs defined ownership and identity. While these markers remain, many institutions have made their boundaries less distinct. Students and faculty move seamlessly back and forth from physical to digital, from the campus to its digital doppelgänger.
Projects across the country point to hybridization – a morphing of building types and fluid patterns of use. These are not just nearby storefront classrooms or branch campuses; nor are they whole new campus projects 10 time zones away. These are different. Retail enterprises dealt with this phenomenon as their brick and mortar stores encountered Amazon and its ilk. The buzzword of choice was phygital.
Innovative programmer/planner of campus environments, Elliot Felix has used the term phygital to describe his firm’s academic library projects. The Hunt Library at North Carolina State is an early example. The library and its resources are first digital and then physical, reversing the conventional understanding. Libraries organized around this inversion, are better suited to meet the needs of faculty members and students living in the flow of digital/physical life and learning. Continue reading